Spatial perspective-taking in conversation.

Abstract

Speakers can describe the locations of objects from their own perspective ("on my left" or "on the left"), their addressee's ("on your right" or "on the right"), or some perspective that avoids choosing one or the other person ("closer to both of us"). This study shows that speakers set spatial perspectives differently with actual conversational partners than with the usually studied imaginary addressees. Speakers with partners tended to use more egocentric perspectives than solo speakers. Pairs varied idiosyncratically in the perspective-setting strategies they picked, but all engaged in the same collaborative process: talking until both were sure they had understood each other. When conversational roles switched, the new speakers allocated spatial perspectives with remarkable precision, taking their partners' perspectives just as often as the partner had taken theirs. Speakers were more explicit about whose perspective they were taking when they held the floor for only one description than when they gave many descriptions in a row.